The New Formalist » Poetry

The Crowning of the Blessed Virgin with a Wreath

Marcy Jarvis — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:54:00 +0000

Mother Mary greets us on May Morning.

Mourning not, she smiles to see us come.

Coming with a basket of blue glory,

Glory unto her; May is her month.

He Answered Me

Marcy Jarvis — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:40:30 +0000

He answered me! My grain ran straight away

through me into my lower half; I felt

my hips receive his message and my back

relax into my seat as if a belt

were holding all this sifted sand aloft

inside my breast, inside my brain till this:

He answered me and turned me upside down

and left my top a vacant hourglass.

The Display

Sarah Giragosian — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 04:01:59 +0000

I.
Gone: the lilac dive,
the glitter of pollen. Gone
too are the cosmos.

II.
Bestowed on a tack,
below the thorax, the name
Papilio hovers.

III.
The grave enclosure
frames the line-up: they’re tagged now,
stiff in their lockup.

IV.
Mounted, splayed like cards,
the Pieridae are flightless,
like scissored play-hearts.

V.
Moths, their negatives,
seem over-exposed, their scales
like gauze in bulbed light.

VI.
The voyeur eye frets
at their flourished laterals,
their backs gripped by pins.

V.
Not stomped on, nor swept
away, these bugs, with pupil-
patterned wings, stare back.

Excerpts From A Brief History of World Literature [Part 1]

David J. Rothman — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:01:47 +0000

Homer

Agamemnon, forced to give back Chryseis,

Demands of Achilles, Briseis.

So Achilles, unlaid,

Will not join the parade,

And the Trojans think “No one can slay us!”

Then Patroclus, Achilles’ best buddy,

Takes his armor, but winds up all bloody.

For despite his great will he’s

Not as strong as Achilles—

It’s hard to be a god’s understudy.

So Achilles jumps back in the fray,

Killing Trojans all night and all day.

He turns their boy Hector

Into just one more specter,

And his father, old Priam, goes gray.

Cassandra said “Don’t trust that horse!”

The Trojans ignored her, of course.

But quite soon they learned,

As Ilium burned,

That she could have been quite a resource.

Laocoön agreed it was fake:

To accept it would be a mistake.

They laughed at him too,

And now there’s a statue

Showing how he was killed by a snake.

Odysseus tried to get home.

For a decade he battled the foam.

Telémakhos strove,

While Penelope wove,

To keep suitors from her chromosome.

Nausicaa, Circe, Calypso:

They all had such sweet, pretty lips. “Oh!”

They cried “Brave Odysseus!

Won’t you strip down and kiss us?”

He said “Ladies, I go where my ships go.”

When Odysseus finally returned,

And learned that Penelope’d spurned

The suitors’ lewd beds,

He cut off their heads,

A reward their bad manners had earned.

Plato

Plato wanted to kick out the poet;

Called us liars and said we have no wit;

Said it’s only philosophy

That can free us from sophistry—

But then why write a novel to show it?

Aristotle

Aristotle then taught us to state

Propositions with taxonomical weight,

And when he taught school

He enforced each tough rule,

Sometimes spanking Alexander the Great.

Genesis

In the Bible, in the very beginning,

Eve and Adam have no sense of sinning.

Then they eat the wrong fruit

And are given the boot

Out of Eden, where the snake slithers, grinning.

There were giants in the earth in those days,

But there was also a giant malaise.

This roiled God’s blood,

So he sent a flood,

Though the next time He’ll set things ablaze.

God saved Noah, who fathered a rabble
That soon built the Tower of Babel.
They all spoke one language,
Which gave God great anguish,
So he broke it and made them play Scrabble.

God looked down on the city of Ur,

And saw that its ways were impure.
So he told Abraham
To smash idols and scram,
And henceforth to address Him as “Sir.”

Later on, God said “Abe, kill your son.”
Abe said “Where you want this killing done?”
God said “Get your tefillin,
And stop quoting Bob Dylan.”
Abe said “Yes, sir,” and left on the run.

The Psalms

The Lord is my shepherd, I guess,
But I still seem to want — what a mess!
His rod and his staff
May fill your carafe,
But my cup seems to be holding less.

Augustine

I envy good St. Augustine.
His adolescence was truly obscene.
Later on he apologized,
And so he was canonized!
Not bad for a great libertine.

California Poppies

Taylor Altman — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:01:22 +0000

These poppies, brighter than the Scottish broom,
unload their blossoms, sweet as orange juice,
upon an April afternoon’s deep blues.
Each golden flower is a private room.

When northern California’s in full bloom,
the bees come for a snack, a bouche-amuse,
a plethora of treats. Which will they choose?
The seeds, like onyx lamps, hang in the gloom.

The gardener bends down, and quietly
she preens the glowing rooms; her gloved hands hold
dried leaves like interlocking rings of mail.

As poppy season is unusually
short-lived, seeds tumble from a cup of gold
more precious than the Templars’ holy grail

Two Poems

Joseph S. Salemi — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:01:41 +0000

Respectably Transgressive

“Your verse is not transgressive,” said a team

Of editors who oversaw my work.

“It doesn’t cause the bourgeoisie to scream;

It doesn’t flash a cool postmodern smirk

At old assumptions, attitudes, or notions.

A poem has to break down some taboo,

Give vent to dark, implacable emotions—

But that’s just what your poems do not do.”

And so I whetted each line: made them bite

And slash and hack and amputate and slice.

The editors grew tremulous and white,

Coughed gently, and rephrased their first advice:

“No satire, violence, hatred, drugs, or whoring—

Transgression must be decorous, and boring.”

L’Etat C’est Nous

The oddest thing about the

American polity is that it is run

by an arrogant upscale elite

that fancies itself “progressive.”

—Derek Burgoyne

O we are the sanctified liberals;

We nurture democracy’s flame—

We point out the pathway to virtue

And make sure you follow the same.

We keep to the tasteful dead center;

We banish from thought and from sight

Those strangely upsetting proposals

You hear from the left and the right.

Responsible leaders and parties

Repair to us, begging for aid—

For we give the Stamp of Approval

To all that is decent and staid.

The publishing houses and networks

Comply with our dictates benign.

We like editorial pages

To follow the moderate line.

There are a few barbarous holdouts.

We haven’t got under our hat

Some renegade radio stations,

But we are still working on that.

Credentialling is our main weapon—

You won’t get ahead in your field

Unless we conclude your intentions

Are congruent with our ideal.

Our watchwords are justice and fairness—

The freedom lamp, lit and aglow,

Is held aloft at our conventions

And yet there’s a thing you should know:

These egalitarian trappings

Do not make us part of the mass.

Our status, our wealth, and our merit

Mean we are the governing class.

We want public schools to be funded

(The poor have in us a great friend)

Though Andover, Groton, and Choate

Are where our own children attend.

We force housing laws down the throats of

The evil white working-class hordes,

While we live in luxury condos

Where tenants are vetted by boards.

We issue all policy guidelines

And say when a war is required,

Though none of our sons will be ordered

To fields where live ammo is fired.

O we are the sanctified liberals;

Remember our rank, and your place—

And never presume for a moment

The world doesn’t run by our grace.

Swallows

Leo Yankevich — Sun, 02 May 2010 00:21:10 +0000

It was once thought that swallows

wintered on the moon,

or morphed into field mice

beneath the autumn swoon

of clouds, or slept beneath

wavelets on the floor

of shadowy ponds and lakes

until the sudden lure

of springtime roused them from

the kingdom of the dead.

Early Christians believed

they swirled around the head

of Jesus, giving comfort

as he bore his heavy cross,

or they were harbingers

of heaven after loss.

Today I look above

the eaves as autumn blooms

in the deep well of the sky,

my house’s empty rooms

echoing only wind,

the memory of their song.

They have flown south for winter,

which here is dark and long.

Halloween, 2006

Leo Yankevich — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:33:56 +0000

You see October at the foot of hills,

the leaves of suburbs rotting in the yards

of smiling couch-potatoes, hands on hearts

that beat because they can. They’ve made their wills.

They will bequeath their kingdoms and their money

to bunny shelters. Childless, they will send

their love to Bantu tribesmen, give the honey

from their jars to geisha girls who bend

and make their beds. Yes, you can smell the rot

as you see young men dressed as Catholic nuns

parade the streets, young women crude and worn

by buck abuse, and yahoos watching, fraught

with fear, and waving flags. The evil runs

its course. A rough beast slouches to be born.

The Unknown Circle of Hell

Joseph S. Salemi — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:07:09 +0000

Personae and scene: Vergil and Dante,

somewhere in the mid-region of Hell.

Dante:

Honored Vergil, tell me where we’re going—

It’s hard for me to take in what you’re showing

Without some preparation. I can’t deal

With shocking sights that make my blood congeal.

Already I’m a quaking nervous wreck.

Vergil:

Dante, we’re not halfway through our trek.

Before I guide you to this special ring

I have to ask you for one little thing.

Dante:

What is it, Master? Whatever you request,

I’m bound to honor it. I’m just a guest

In this dead world of spectral pain and fire.

I’ve come to see, then serve the sacred lyre.

Vergil:

That’s exactly what I’m driving at—

Dante, this next ring is not for that.

What you see here you cannot write about.

Keep your mouth shut, for without a doubt

It will not serve our honor to disclose

This special class of sinners. Heaven knows

They aren’t quite as bad as some we’ve viewed:

The heretics, the violent, and the lewd,

Or those the devils roast upon a spit,

Or gluttons in a rain of piss and shit.

Still, I want this circle to stay hidden.

Dante:

Master, I will do what I am bidden.

But Vergil, just who are these chosen sinners?

And by what favor of the Triple Spinners

Do they escape the fury of my pen?

Vergil:

Dante, there’s a certain group of men

Who can produce great beauty if they try

By fashioning a pretty little lie.

These are the poets, and you know the breed,

For you and I are children of their seed.

Dante:

But master, are the poets all in Hell?

This abattoir of foul sulphuric smell?

Vergil:

No, not all—but there are quite a few.

Let me introduce you to the crew.

First, there are the scum who scrounged for grants.

Here the demons stab them with a lance

Right in the rectum. Though they howl and yelp,

Their résumés won’t bring them any help.

They spent their lives brown-nosing derrières—

Now they get a violent thrust up theirs.

Dante:

I can’t conceive a better retribution

For those who turned their art to prostitution.

Vergil:

These men here ran seminars and workshops—

The devils lift them high up, and each jerk drops

Onto a bed of upraised bayonets.

That’s the fitting punishment he gets

For conning fools and grabbing coed ass

And spouting lousy poetry in class.

Dante:

Who are these who fill the air with pleadings?

Vergil:

They are poets who gave countless readings

As an excuse to socialize and drink.

We load their backs with lecterns. Don’t you think

A punishment of that sort suits their crime?

They’ll tote those lecterns till the end of time.

Dante:

I notice there a pack whose horrid braying

Is donkey-like, but God knows what they’re saying.

Vergil:

Those are silly twits with MFAs

Who pay the price here of their wasted days.

We stuff them (like good Strasbourg geese) with theory

Until their minds are gone, and eyes are bleary.

Dante:

I hear a piercing scream that starts to harrow

My very soul, and chills me to the marrow!

Vergil:

Ah yes, that’s someone who can’t keep the meter.

Hell considers such a bard a cheater

And so he’s stretched and broken on the rack

Until the vertebrae inside his back

Are carefully laid out in pure iambics.

That’s the only way to treat these damn pricks.

Dante:

Vergil, is such punishment condign?

Not every poet can maintain the line.

Vergil:

If they can’t follow metrics, why the hell

Do they claim to be poets? There’s no smell

Here in the Devil’s Furnace that out-stenches

These limping, foot-shy poets. He who wrenches

His line-length out of kilter is a ninny

Who turns our golden art to something tinny,

And once down here he’ll pay for it in groans

As we set straight his sinews, joints, and bones.

Dante:

Well Master, on this circle I’ll keep silence

Unlike the sins of carnal lust and violence.

I’ll write no canto on this ring of poets—

No reader of my Comedy shall know its

Presence in Inferno. But please tell:

Why leave unsung this little bit of Hell?

Vergil:

Dante, we are poets, you and I—

And when that holy calling goes awry

Our general reputation is befouled.

So therefore let this circle be encowled

Like hooded monks in cloisters closely pent

Unspeaking and unspoken of. They’ve rent

The fabric of our art to tattered rags.

They’re just a pack of whoring, worn-out slags.

Allow them not a taste of celebration

By writing of their well-deserved damnation.

Dante:

I’ll add unto the pains these folk endure

A compound curse that leaves their work obscure.

They shall inherit, as their portion just,

The tongueless silence of the dreamless dust.

Samuel Johnson

Wiley Clements — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:40:11 +0000

The minds of some men are familiar lands
With mountains, rivers, moors, long winding roads,
Meadows, forest tracks and desert sands,
Vipers and hornets, scorpions and toads.
His mind was like a thundering sky at times,
A tempest, tidal wave, a storm at sea;
Again it was a campanile of chimes,
A quiet lake, a zephyr on the lea,
A picture gallery, a treasury
Of antique volumes curiously clept,
The archive of a scholar's memory
In which the whole of English speech was kept.
In company, if wit and sense declined,
What vast supply in that Bodleian mind!